February 26th, 2026

Wake up call at 4:30am and had our bags out in the hall by 4:45 for hotel staff to load on the bus. They were serving an early breakfast but since it feels like we just had dinner we opted out of it. We were on the bus at 5:30am and off to the airport. We had to go through security with our bags and carry on and then we checked in. We checked in at Egypt air but Viking had reserved all the seats on the plane. All 62 passengers that will be on our river boat plus our guides were on the plane with us. After you checked your bags in you went back through security but they wanted all the women to go through first and then all the men. I assume it was because of the pat down everyone got and instead of flipping back and forth between it was easier to do 1 sex first and then switch to a male attendant. We were loaded on a bus and driven out to the plane. It was a short 55 min flight of which I slept through most of it. We lucked out and got the exit row so plenty roomy to stretch out.

All our bags were loaded on the bus we just had to claim and make sure we the room tags on them.

We went immediately from the airport to Karnak Temple which is a Unesco world heritage site. It is the 2nd most visited site in Egypt, the Pyramids of Giza being first. Construction at Karnak took over 1500 years. It is the largest religious complex ever constructed serving as the primary place of worship in Egypt for over 200 years. 30 pharaohs were involved in the construction.

It is lined by a sphinx colonnade. The site was packed and the weather was in the 70s.

There were hundreds of carvings and most of them have been damaged over time.

Hieroglyphics are everywhere.

The Main Street is lined with hand carved pillars covered in hieroglyphics.

A lot of the statues and hieroglyphics were vandalized when the Christians came because they felt you should not idolize any person and a statue or picture depicting you was a possible idol.

You can see from the pictures how huge the pillars were. .

Some of the hieroglyphics depicted chariots and archers

The columns still showed color even after centuries.

We toured the site for 3 hours and then they took us to a local library that had an auditorium to show us a video on both the Temple of Karnak and the Temple of Luxor, where we were going this evening. While the video was good, the room was dark and the chairs were comfortable and I soon fell asleep. I heard from several people on the bus that they too fell asleep.

Finally it was on to our home for the next 7 nights, the MS Antares. We had heard about this boat and how it was not your standard river cruise boat. It is all wood and styled after how the Egyptians used to travel along the Nile. Our bags were already in the room and the room is spectacular.

We have a huge bed, 3 giant floor to ceiling windows, one of which is a sliding glass door, a sitting area with a couch, chair and ottoman and tons of storage.

The sitting area and our entry way that has a desk, 2 large closets with shelves and a bathroom with a tub. Definitely more than comfortable and any other ship this would be considered a suite. The boats has 32 cabins so max of 64 passengers.

We had our first lunch on board and then we had some free time to unpack. The top deck has outside seating, a grill, lounge chairs, bar and even a swimming pool, but way too chilly to swim.

At 4:30 we had a safety review and orientation to the next few days. At 5:30 we departed for the Temple of Luxor. The Temple of Luxor is built on the bank of the Nile. It was started in 1390 BCE and took several pharaohs to complete including Ramses II. It is a spectacular temple and much smaller than Karnak Temple but it is amazing at night with the sunset and lighting.

Sunset on the Nile on the way to the Temple.

Luxor Temple at sunset.

More huge carvings out of granite that are 30 feet high.

Hieroglyphics cover all the walls and they are 3D.

While the temple is spectacular during the day it really shines at night when they light it up.

We spent 90 minutes there and our Egyptologist assigned to us, Randa, interpreted several of the hieroglyphics and gave us a lot of the history of the Temple.

We returned to our boat at 7pm, just in time for dinner, and had a lovely meal. We were supposed to get up at 4:45am for a ballon ride over the ruins but they just called and canceled the ride saying it would be too windy. While I am disappointed that we won’t get a second ballon ride in this trip we are not upset about being able to sleep in some. 2 early mornings in a row was going to be tough.

Tomorrow we sail from Luxor so we will get some ship time in the morning and then an afternoon visit to another Temple.